What? Bring this looneybin of nightgaunts to RL? I don't think it ready for us yet, Thin.

I'd like to thank Noggie for realising what my point was, that in common usage "tragic" is not limited to just the formal, classical meaning, so it isn't a question of "mixing it up" but of clarifying how we use the word. After all, I myself was making an offhand nod to a particular meaning ....

And anyways, why can't we discuss Wittgenstein? LMP talks about Barfield. Or are we only supposed to talk about writers who agree with Tolkien or who Tolkien agreed with? Maybe his ideas about language aren't the only ones out there.

Well, isn't the end of every tragedy supposed to bring us back out of the horror?

It might depend on the time and the author... :)

But this also raises the question whether a tragedy should give us the hope or the uplifting with it's content, by somehow suggesting that there still are lives to live for or hope in the horizon (like I see LotR doing it)? Or is it just this katharsis that Aristotle spoke of, where it is the general characteristics of a tragedy to let us experience the strong and frightening feelings in a safe way and thus feel relieved emotinally? So what makes a tragedy: the actual content of it or the reaction it arouses in us? :smokin:

But is there hope at the end of LOTR? The Ents will die out, the elves are leaving, Gandalf has exhausted his purpose. It all seems quite nihilistic to me.

Hope
 

Treebeard still had hope that the Entviewes would be found, surely it does not look like it, but the hope remains.

The Elves are leaving yes, but that is not devistating at all. Beautiful things will disapear, but only from middle-earth. It was not like men had much interfearing with elves anyway.

Hehe the very fact that Gandalf is leaving signals hope! He was only around when there was very little hope, him leaving is a sign of better days to come.

This being said I must admit that all of these things makes me sad, but that is not the same as it takes away hope.

(only the hope of Legolas and Gandalf running an entling-kindergarden is no more)

The Shire was successfully defended. The party tree grew back. Merry and Pippin had progeny. Sam and Rosie had a baker's dozen--lots more than Aragorn and Arwen, who must have been busy with ruling etc. The Shire expanded its territory. Eowyn and Faramir redeveloped Ithilien. Dale recovered well.

Does change always mean a defeat of hope? I don't think so.

If you ask Nietzsche, Tolstoy, Jünger, Heidegger... yes it does. But if you ask the enlightenment philosophers, Marx, J.S. Mill, the socialist movement, the technocrats... no it doesn't. Change is for the better or worse. :D

But as a true romantic, J.R.R. did not love change?

I am the same, I think the tragedy is that you grow so attached to the characters and they mean so much to you as a reader that in a sense you yearn for further perils so that they can continue as they did in the past. But all things eventually change.

No matter how much you scrape, you eventually run out of butter for your toast. You could give up on breakfast altogether, and sit on your duff despondently in the kitchen, or simply microwave some waffles.

But was J.R. "a true romantic"? Oh, my, we have another word to define!


Ghoulish, isn't it, how much enjoyment some have in wanting to see others struggle even more.

Tragic, en't it, how the standards of cookery have declined with that wretched microwave.

Tragedy is not being able to leave the Shire, to leave that which is comfortable and familiar for that which is unknown. Maybe Eru permitted Sauron in order to kick the Elves out of their kitchen (stocked mainly with regrets, formaldehyde and songs about how things used to be) and onto either the East or West Road.

If only Biblo hadn't left his door.

No, it doesn't. Or yes, it does defeat some hope, but not all hope. Change can be good, bad or neutral, but it always leaves the heart longing for something. I guess that human is such a languor-minded species that when happy, s/he finds some, however little, good things s/he misses in the previous horrible state, though s/he does not miss the horrible thing per se.

(Am I making any sense :confused: ?)

A lot, I think.

In totally desperate situations people are able to tend even a tiniest spark of hope and in the moments of luxury and ease they are able to long for harder times. :D

But yes. I see a lot of hope there in the end of the LotR. It will be different, but not just bad or terrible. And in our "good ages" we may then long for the past strifes and troubles with their honour and beauty. Like good romantics do. (Touché, Bêthberry - we really should define that word, but maybe next time? :) )

Entrophy, my dears. It's a universal law, and it (I think) applies to Tolkien's world as well. But that doesn't mean there's always a defeat of hope, because if there is, then ME and Arda would have been destroyed beyond repair.

My opinion.
 

I personally would say that the entrance, rather the inclusion of Tom Bombadil was the most tragic event. Tolkien introduced us to a character that immediately 'stuck out'. A character you knew was something special, but whose involvement was cruelly cut short and confined to a mere few pages, never being fully developed or explained.

Perhaps something that made him one of the better characters. Alas, I sigh and can only dream.

Truly the Second Law rules the day, and will have the last laugh, though none be present to hear it, but remember, this Law has been in effect since Day 1 (you know what I mean) and all must bow before it, yet localized systems of order have appeared, and so we have galaxies, planets, persons, the Children of Beren and Tinúviel, the Last Alliance...

All is not lost.

- Boromir's Death

- Frodo's departure to the Grey Havens

- Reading the appendices timeline when the story is over :(

Frodo leaving these eastern shores and the Shire. He gave so much, and nothing was left for him. For the others (except Boromir), there was life after the Third Age. Not for Frodo. He still carried the Third Age in his head, hand and heart, and only Aman offered the possibility of healing.

This thread has got me humming an old song of Lou Reed's, with a slight displacement of at least one word. I suppose we could have a go at revising the entire thing.

This tragic moment

:p

Has to be the death of Thingol.

I know it's not canon, but the published version just works so much better than any of the treatments JRRT himself wrote.

"So died in the deep places of Menegroth Elwe singollo, King of Doriath, who alone of all the Children of Illuvatar was joined with one of the Ainur; and he who, alone of the Forsaken Elves, had seen the light of the Trees of Valinor, with his last sight gazed upon the Silmaril."

Sob!

Isn't it so, that order and organisation can be introduced into any system if it comes from outside it, and if there is no outside force to create order then everything will go towards disorder? (The original law, if I recollect it right, says something like that the differences will smooth down and thrive towards being even)

So the outer forces from the point of view of ME have been all the time backing the order (t)here: the Valar, the Maiar and even the elves in their own way. Now they are leaving it all to us humans in the end of the stories.

So we humans can still affect things outside ourselves, eg. molding stone into beautifully organised patterns like statues or great architecture, bringing sounds together to make organised music and whatever. But there is no force any more to hold us humans in balance or order? So how long can we fight this alone?

If one looks at different myths from around the world, there seems to be a recurrent theme where people are created to fight alongside gods to defeat disorder or chaos (the Northern legends, the Babylonians, somewhat the Bible or the Indian Veda's too) or there is a strong emphasis on the importance of balance / order, like in Asian world-views etc. Maybe we humans have the hope (coming back to my theme) then anyhow? Can we sustain the order of things against the natural law of chaos gaining ground everywhere? With the law of entropy, we are forced to fight against it every minute as we are without the help from beyond our system, now as all the forces that might help us have withdrawn!

Isn't this the most tragic thing in the books?

Or are these just old-time "religious" views of the world that do not appreciate the fact that we humans have made all the order and happiness ourselves in the first place?

Or is the tragedy in there as we can't know, which one of the answers is the right one? :confused:

sorry nogrod i lost you around the bit where you said

A quiet Oxford don called Dodgson pre-empted Wittgenstein by several decades, you know... ;)
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.' The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'



As for most tragic moment....the fate of Hurin - who in some versions of the Narn, dies while still in despair. I find that almost unbearable.

Definately the death of Boromir.

In the movie the death of Boromir is indeed one a very very tragic moment, perhaps the most tragic I ever seen in a movie (I don't often see tragic movies ;) ). Yet I didn't experience it like that while reading the book.

I think the story of Túrin is the most tragic story Tolkien ever wrote, and the most tragic moment in it is probaly when Glaurung dies and the spell is destroyed, and Túrin and his sister discover they are married to eachother, which ultimately leeds to the suicide of Túrin..

Yeah,you're probably right.I didn't feel sad when the Uruk-Hais killed in the book.Maybe I felt sad about Boromir in the movie because Sean Bean is one of my favorite actors after "Sharp's rifles". :D

I always thought that Turin had the most tragic fate in the books...I always found it sad how his life ended and the irony of fate...master of doom by doom mastered indeed

in the films, I always found Haldir's death the most tragic moment, with him looking at all the other dead Elves before he died

I don't have "Letters" with me at the moment, but I think
Tolkien concurs that perhaps the most tragic moment in
LOTR (at least) is when Gollum almost repents but is
dissuaded by Sam's (granted well-meaning) intervention. :(

Yes the gollum story is very tragic indeed, Frodo finally get's a bit of hope, but then by a misunderstanding Gollum turns all evil again and everything almost fails, I also pitie Frodo soooo much in the bit where he doesn't realize Gollum is against him and trying to get rid of Sam...

I don't think Boromir's death is at all tragic, either in the movies or the book. He earns a noble and honorable death, atoning for his seduction by the Ring. "I am sorry. I have paid." Sad that he dies, sure. Not tragic.

Well, actually, according to the Princeton glossary I can access from my cell phone, tragic means "very sad; especially involving grief or death or destruction". So by that definition, it is tragic. But to me, the word tragic implies a lot more than merely "very sad."

Perhaps this term we must also define.

I think Boromir's Death was just the first of many tragic moments in the book. I feel that Treebeard was a wee bit tragic because of there being no more Entwives. I also thought Theoden's death at the hand's of the Witch-King was not only tragic but gut renching. Frodo leaving Middle-Earth was sad for me as well Arwen giving up immortality for the man she loved, that was heart-warming and romantic but was always destined to have a tragic ending.

My two most tragic moments if when the baby sons of Dior are left out to starve and the end of Numenor - a pointless act of vengeance in which many innocents died made more so when it was perpetrated a a supposedly good character (Don't attack me here its all discussed in the thread Attrocity of the Akallabeth). I think Fingolfin was an idiot who died stupidly and pointlessly.

Boromir's death would have to be one of the most tragic moments of the entire book. I would also rank Theoden's death up there as well.

I've just read the conversation between Finrod and Andreth, its one of the saddest things I've read in my entire life :( , if I wasn't so full of masculine insecurity I'd cry my eyes out

Saruman's spirit being turned away. For some reason it always made me sad, does anyone else agree?

the saddest part would have to be in the movie where the fell beasts and eagles have the big air fight. all the time they spent making the nazguls charaters and just so you can see them chucked around like rag dolls in the last few scenes.